The Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended for the 2018 Winter Olympics and the nation will not be able to compete as a team in South Korea following an investigation into state-sponsored doping scandal.

Russian athletes who are invited by a special IOC panel will have to compete under a neutral flag at the PyeongChang Games, the International Olympic Committee's executive board ruled Tuesday. The Games will be held Feb. 9-25.

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"This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport," IOC President Thomas Bach said in a release. "The IOC EB, after following due process, has issued proportional sanctions for this systemic manipulation while protecting the clean athletes. This should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping system led by WADA."

The athletes will be identified as "Olympic Athlete from Russia." Their flag will be the Olympic rings, and the Olympic Anthem will play any time a Russian athlete stands on the podium for a gold medal.

The decision comes after an investigation into allegations of doping at the 2014 Games hosted by Russia in Sochi.

The investigation, led by IOC member and former Swiss President Samuel Schmid, confirmed "the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia, though the Disappearing Positive Methodology and during the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, as well as the various levels of administrative, legal and contractual responsibility, resulting from the failure to respect the respective obligations of the various entities involved."

Schmid received a 50-page sworn affidavit from Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Moscow and Sochi laboratory director who is a key witness for World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren and Oswald.

Russia has repeatedly denied that a state-sponsored doping program existed. It blames Rodchenkov as a rogue employee, and wants the scientist extradited from the United States, where he is a protected witness.

The sanctions can be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and later at Switzerland’s supreme court, which can intervene if legal process has been abused.

To be invited, athletes must meet the following qualifications:

They must have qualified according to the standards of their respective sport.

They must not have been disqualified or declared ineligible for any anti-doping rule violation.

They must have undergone all the pre-Games targeted tests recommended by a testing task force and any other testing specified by the panel.

"The IOC took a strong and principled decision," the USOC said in a statement. "There were no perfect options, but this decision will clearly make it less likely that this ever happens again. Now it is time to look ahead to PyeongChang."